In this article, Fontaine investigates how women’s lived experience became part of the literary forms, content, and theology of the wisdom tradition in ancient Israel. To do so, she surveys the roles of women as portrayed in the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes and also draws on examples from other ancient Near Eastern cultures.
To begin, Fontaine proposes a new definition of a “sage” as anyone who routinely performs “authorship, scribal duties, … counselling, management of economic resources, conflict resolution, teaching and healing” (25). She also notes the presence of great female figures in wisdom literature, such as Woman Wisdom and the Woman of Worth. Fontaine observes that these exaltations of women belie real women’s status in society – in the same way that venerating the Virgin Mary does not correlate with valuing real women. Therefore, characters like Woman Wisdom should only be seen as expressing partial truths, or at least only those “facts” that male sages felt were worth recording. In short, Fontaine complicates any kind of simple relationship between literary representations and “reality,” whatever that may be.
Next, Fontaine makes some methodological notes. First, she proposes that wisdom literature is a kind of art produced by “verbal artisans” (27) and so should be approached with literary sensitivity. Fontaine sees this literary wisdom as a result of the writers’ “intellectual ecumenism”; although Israel was emphasized as theologically unique, these writers felt comfortable drawing from their neighbors and their predecessors. Wisdom, in Fontaine’s reading, means precisely the kind of thought that is “honed” on “the cultures that preceded and surrounded them” (27). Fontaine also notes that wisdom literature drew on “folk wisdom” and in particular on the tribal heritage of Israel. She even suggests that “the Hebrew Bible’s indecision on the subject of monarchy … may be a survival of the sentiments of the non-elite” (28). Although wisdom literature may not be a “pure” representation of the folk, some elements of non-literary “reality” were certainly incorporated in it.
First, Fontaine analyzes literary representations of women. The “virtuous wife” or “Woman of Worth” is perceived as the mistress of the “private domain.” She completes day-to-day tasks, manages her servants, and even gives alms to the poor. Yet she also finds time to teach and counsel – in other words, she is a practitioner of wisdom. This wisdom has distinct characteristics, among them the association with young children and the home and, more negatively, craftiness and manipulation. Fontaine suggests that these “indirect means … are typical strategies employed by those who do not have direct access to power” (31). Fontaine notes that these characteristics are particularly associated with the negative counterpart of Woman Wisdom, Woman Stranger. Her use of language is seductive and deceptive; she takes all the wifely virtues and turns them upside down. In both forms, though, the woman is portrayed by the male sages who are authors of the literary texts.
Fontaine next turns to women as authors. She asserts that women almost never received a full scribal education. In other words, most women were illiterate. Fontaine also notes that some folk genres are traditionally associated with women – “lullabies, working songs, [and] love songs” (36) among them. This complicates determinations of authorship in interesting ways. For example, if a woman creates a work but it was transcribed by a male scribe, do both parties share authorship? What if a work emerges from a communal tradition but is put into its definitive form by a male scribe? Fontaine gives one example to illustrate this complexity of authorship. In Proverbs 31:1–9, King Lemuel records the admonitions, prohibitions, and proverbs given by his mother. Fontaine argues that these words of the queen mother are clearly part of “the mother’s Torah,” with much use of imperatives, familial terms, and common themes. Fontaine points out that other queens also used “the language of wisdom to achieve [their] goals” (39), including the Hittite Queen Puduḫepa. Once again, however, other parts of the Bible portray the same characteristics in inversion – this time in the story of Jezebel. The authorship of the “Instruction” in the Book of Proverbs is unclear – the queen mother? King Lemuel? The scribe who first wrote it down? – but the presentation of women as diplomats, in harmony with other contemporary cultures, is unmistakeable.
Another function of women in wisdom literature that Fontaine notes is as folk healers. Apart from evidence from the Bible, Fontaine points to the example of Hittite wise women. They used their “keen observation of natural phenomena” to practice “medical magic” (43). “Female sorcery” like this is condemned in multiple verses of the Hebrew Bible – and the function of women as folk healers is thereby confirmed. When they fail to heal, though, these women were accused of witchcraft and severely persecuted. In all situations, the perception of women as healers is strongly influenced by the wider societal climate.
The last role of women in wisdom literature that Fontaine describes is as professional mourners. These women used the “poetic conventions of ritual mourning” to express a sense of “orderly ritual” by “raising an outcry over the dead” (45). In ancient Sumerian, a special dialect (EME.SAL) was reserved specifically for women to use in ritual functions such as mourning. Similar roles of women are attested in Jeremiah 9:12, 2 Samuel, the Hittite MI.SU.GI, and examples of Ugaritic lament.
Fontaine draws a number of conclusions. First, she notes that all the roles of women she described hinge on the practice of “deliberate, formalized language acts” (46). Training of some sort was required to use these, even though the roles originated from the functions of wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters within the home. Finally, all the roles – as diplomats, healers, and professional mourners – had negative counterparts when women’s actions were perceived to be challenging the patriarchy. All of these characteristics of “real” roles are paralleled in the literary figures of Woman Wisdom and Woman Stranger. As Fontaine puts it, “these two metaphorical figures embody the social roles, positive and negative, which women filled within society at large and the wisdom movement in particular” (46). This parallel structure is coherent and convincing. In particular, Fontaine’s integration of literary evidence, “real-life” roles, and examples from other ancient Near Eastern cultures is skillful and strongly supports her argument. Parallels can certainly be drawn with the roles of women in ancient Athens, especially in the type of rituals described by Manuela Giordano. Unlike Giordano, however, Fontaine made a concise and convincing argument by adroitly incorporating a variety of sources while maintaining a tight focus.